Early partition of Schleswig

After the 1st Schelswig War I don't think you need Captain Hindsight to realize that the business isn't finished. So I recently learned that upon German advance, the Danish were offering chunks of Southern Schleswig to the Germans.

So, could the Danish preempt the 2nd Schleswig War by offering part of Schleswig to be integrated into the German Confederation (and administered along with Holstein) in exchange for annexing the rest of Schleswig directly to Denmark?
(The partition here is key, I'm not addressing if the succession of Christian IX to the duchies is going to be part of the agreement so this may or may not be in the package.)
 
I think they would probably try and retain the position as duke of the two duchies, however if they want to get away with abrogating Christian I's guarantee of the two duchies being "forever undivided" then they may have to make concessions. The London Convention puts them in a strong position, at least for the moment, so there's something to work with. A decent compromise might be Denmark gets to annex the dark green and brown districts of the map, the remainder of Schleswig remains in personal union with Denmark but with a lot of internal autonomy and guarantees, and Holstein is shuffled off to the Augustenburgs to become a part of the German Confederation. Of course that requires the Danes and everyone else to be farsighted enough to realise that things needed to be settle definitively.
 
I think they would probably try and retain the position as duke of the two duchies,

They would. (But I was thinking that the Germans may bitch later about the succession of Christian IX... Or not... Holstein and the German part of Schleswig would still be in the German Confederation regardless of who's their duke.)

however if they want to get away with abrogating Christian I's guarantee of the two duchies being "forever undivided" then they may have to make concessions.
Considering that Schleswig was never part of the HRE, making (part of) the duchy join the German Confederation seems like a great consession. And this should be relatively painless to the Danish because Denmark proper only increases and the Danish Realms don't lose a square centimeter.

and Holstein is shuffled off to the Augustenburgs to become a part of the German Confederation.
Holstein was already a part of the German Confederation, the point here was making (part of) Schleswig join the GC, too.
Anyway, the Danish certainly didn't seem very eager to keep Holstein or Lauenberg, so they could later concede on those Daneless realms and just keep German Schleswig in personal union.

Of course that requires the Danes and everyone else to be farsighted enough to realise that things needed to be settle definitively.

Is it so hindsightful? Didn't the Danish know they had a bunch of powerful southern neighbours that were grudgingly waiting for a reason to march in? It's easy for me to talk but I'd think it would be easy to see that it was a good time to go to the negotiation table while they have the upper hand...
 
Didn't the Danish know they had a bunch of powerful southern neighbours that were grudgingly waiting for a reason to march in? It's easy for me to talk but I'd think it would be easy to see that it was a good time to go to the negotiation table while they have the upper hand...



The Danes (or at least the current Danish administration) were basically as thick as two short planks. For ages and ages they kept kidding themselves that some foreign power would come to their rescue, though none had any pressing reason to do so, and all were otherwise preoccupied. So they rejected proposal for a division of Schleswig along the linguistic border, holding out for the line of the River Schlei, which would have left a sizeable number of Germans under Danish rule [1]. It took not merely German occupation of all Jutland, but also the loss of the island of Als, before they finally awoke to reality.

[1] The Danes claimed that they needed this line as a "defensible border". In the event, the Austro-Prussians managed to cross it easily within a week of hostilities commencing.
 
The Danes (or at least the current Danish administration) were basically as thick as two short planks. For ages and ages they kept kidding themselves that some foreign power would come to their rescue, though none had any pressing reason to do so, and all were otherwise preoccupied. So they rejected proposal for a division of Schleswig along the linguistic border, holding out for the line of the River Schlei, which would have left a sizeable number of Germans under Danish rule [1]. It took not merely German occupation of all Jutland, but also the loss of the island of Als, before they finally awoke to reality.

[1] The Danes claimed that they needed this line as a "defensible border". In the event, the Austro-Prussians managed to cross it easily within a week of hostilities commencing.

Ah but at least they were willing to partition somehow... Did that German proposal imply surrendering sovereignty over the duchies or was the King of Denmark still going to be Duke of [German] Schleswig and Holstein? If such proposal safeguarded Danish personal union with German Schleswig I don't understand why would they need a defensible border for Denmark proper...
 
Ah but at least they were willing to partition somehow... Did that German proposal imply surrendering sovereignty over the duchies or was the King of Denmark still going to be Duke of [German] Schleswig and Holstein? If such proposal safeguarded Danish personal union with German Schleswig I don't understand why would they need a defensible border for Denmark proper...


Iirc the Germans had initially offered to accept personal union, but the Danes had flatly refused. Indeed, it was precisely their abandonment of it in favour of amalgamating Schleswig with Denmark which had precipitated the whole business, and give Bismarck his opening.

The offer to which I referred came quite a bit later, when Schleswig was already largely overrun. I think King Christian would have liked to accept it, but Prime Minister Monrad didn't want to know.

Word of caution though. This is 'Orrible Otto we are talking about. I strongly suspect that he had taken the measure of his adversaries, and made these proposals confident that they would be rejected. Had he thought the Danes likely to accept them, they might well not have been made.
 
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Understood. Were the Danish blessed with a more down-to-earth leadership, the Germans may settle with a language border but they would probably not accept Frederick VII has heir to the duchies upfront.

Thanks for your share.
 
if they want to get away with abrogating Christian I's guarantee of the two duchies being "forever undivided" then they may have to make concessions.
Who considered that guarantee to be all-important, and what did such people do in the post-1920 period? Are there any of that opinion in the area today?

What I am saying is that if partition was so horrible, people should really have gone to extremes in fighting against it. Perhaps there could be a guerilla war still going on, IRA-style. We are neighbors with the Irish, after all ...

German Schleswig-Holstein tried to join Denmark in around 1945, similar to Hannover trying to reunite with Britain at the same time, but both were rejected.
 
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